Cabinet of curiosities

This superb ebony cabinet on a large base has doors on all sides, and behind these are more doors, panels, drawers and compartments. Everything can open and each part has been decorated in the most skilful and expensive manner. Almost all the materialsMaterialsMaterials used in the Augsburg art cabinet: softwood, ebony, palm wood, walnut wood, cedar, rosewood, silver, enamelled silver, gilded silver, marble, bone, horn, ivory, copper, silk, gilt, semi-precious stones, agates, jasper, malachite, serpentine, lapis-lazuli, opals, wax paint, scumble, paper, paste, mirror glass, Solnhof stone. imaginable have been used in this cabinetCollectors cabinetsIn the 16th and 17th centuries wealthy merchants and scholars often collected rare and curious objects. These collections would often be housed in cabinets: special cupboards made for the collector, sometimes entire rooms. In fact, a cabinet of curiosities is a miniature museum. Sixteenth- and 17th-century collectors aimed at encapsulating the whole cosmos in their collection. A collection would generally contain fossils, old coins, precious stones, preserved organisms, ostrich eggs and manmade objects.. It was designed to store a collection of art and rare objects and was made in about 1630 in Augsburg for Duke August of Brunswick-Lüneburg after a design by Philipp Hainhofer, a prominent merchant and art collector.